


The Adversarial Process

by the_wordbutler



Series: Motion Practice [23]
Category: Marvel (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Domestic Violence, F/F, Legal Drama, motion practice universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-18 22:50:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1445728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wordbutler/pseuds/the_wordbutler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Assistant District Attorney Natasha Romanoff understands one very discrete area of the law, and she’s good at it.</p><p>But being good doesn’t solve everything.  In fact, it doesn’t even come close.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Adversarial Process

**Author's Note:**

> This story features instances of domestic violence, instances of stalking, implied acts of past domestic violence, and acts of past sexual assault. It also features the off-screen death of an original female character. In short: it may be extremely triggering for some people. The endnotes include a more detailed description of the possible triggers.
> 
> I started writing this story almost eighteen months ago, but the subject matter was difficult and Natasha is not a chatty character.
> 
> Most of the events of this story take place during “Admissions, Interrogatories, and Other Discoveries.” The last scene takes place during “Diversions.”
> 
> Thanks as always to my wonderful betas, Jen and saranoh, who never seem surprised when I pull a story out of deep freeze, dust it off, and introduce it to the world.

“I can’t do this, Natasha. I—I can’t. Just can’t.”

Assistant District Attorney Natasha Romanoff nearly rolls her eyes. “We’ve talked about this, Molly,” she says for the thousandth time in the last week. She leans forward, her arms on her desk, and watches the woman in the chair across from her. “You _have_ to testify at this trial.”

“But I _can’t_.”

“Yes, you can.”

“Nata—”

“Yes, Molly. You _can_.”

Domestic violence advocates with special training and extra-special _empathy_ all say the same thing: the victims of intimate crimes at the hands of their intimate partners need the criminal justice system to understand their struggles. They need prosecutors who have expertise in the cycle of violence and control beyond what they see on Lifetime Original Movies. They need social service providers, law enforcement, and attorneys to listen and respond rather than impose rules. They need soft voices, hand-holding, and a careful, situation-based empowerment.

Natasha suspects they’ve never met women like Molly Harper.

Molly Harper is twenty-five years old and about a hundred pounds when she’s soaking wet, with stringy brown hair and long, dirty fingernails. _Meth-addict fingernails_ , Natasha’d thought the first time she’d sat down across from Molly, fingernails that pick at scabs and bruises when Molly’s nervous. It’d taken four different witness interviews for Natasha to work out that the scabs on Molly’s arms were cigarette burns, a weekly or bi-weekly “present” from her husband.

Now, two years later, she’s watching Molly pick at one of the old scars, her fingers digging futilely at the healed skin and her eyes focused on her arm rather than on Natasha. It’s a cold early-February day outside, but Molly’s in a thin t-shirt and a pair of ratty jeans. Natasha’s called the local shelter three different times about helping Molly find a coat for the colder weather, but, of course, they’re all overworked and underpaid. It sets Natasha’s jaw and puts her nerves on edge, the more she thinks about it.

“Look at me, Molly,” she says. She keeps her voice soft, but it’s firm, too.

Molly stares at her arm. “Natasha—”

“ _Look_ at me.”

Her head inches up slowly, as reluctant as a child who’s been caught sticking her fingers in the cookie jar. The longer she observes Molly, the more Natasha’s able to uncover about her recent life: it’s been three days since she’s showered, a week since she’s washed her clothes, and two weeks since she’s slept anywhere other than the shelter. Her family’s in Detroit or Dubuque, some far away city with a D-name that Natasha can’t recall. All she’s had since she moved to Suffolk County five years ago is her husband.

The husband who, next week, will be tried for telephone harassment and aggravated criminal stalking.

Molly chews on her chapped lower lip. Her hands never stop working.

“How long have we known each other?” Natasha asks after a few seconds of eye contact. 

Molly shrugs. “Couple years.”

“And what have I told you every time we’ve met in those couple years?” Her dark eyes drop to the floor, and she mutters something that’s hardly audible. “Molly?”

“He only gets as much power as we give him. But _Natasha_ , this time’s worse than ever!” Molly’s head snaps back up, her stringy hair flying in her face. She’s frightened and wild, suddenly, a spooked deer running through the woods. “He came to the shelter—”

“In violation of the protection order?” 

“—and told me that if he gets locked up again, he’ll kill me.” Molly shakes her head and shrinks further into the chair. “He’s still showing up when I go places, my _mama_ said he called the house to ask about me, I don’t—” 

Natasha can watch it, can _see_ the way Molly’s fire is instantly swallowed up and snuffed out by something unseen. Something, she thinks, or some _one_ , the voice of Greg Harper that lives in the back of Molly’s mind. They’d talked about it when Natasha’d sat and helped Molly fill out the protection order three months earlier, Molly saying the same thing Natasha’s heard a thousand times:

_Even when I’m not there, I hear him, and I know all the things he’s gonna say to me when he catches up to me._

“Molly,” Natasha says as Molly tucks her legs up on the chair like a teenager. “We’ll have Jasper Sitwell in the courtroom when you testify. Remember Jasper?” She nods, a halting, stuttering motion. “We’ll bring you in the back, take you out the back, and because you testify first, you’ll be done long before court’s finished for the day. We’ll keep you safe.”

Molly stares at her battered tennis shoes. They’re gray in all the places they’re meant to be white. “You can’t keep me safe forever.”

“No, but we can keep you safe until he’s sentenced, and then he’ll be in—”

The word _custody_ , the word Natasha’s been building toward since Molly flew into her office wide-eyed and terrified a half-hour earlier, is interrupted by a knock at the door. Before she can ask who it is, however, Clint Barton bursts into the room. Okay, “bursts” might be a little unfair, because it’s really just Clint entering her office the same way he does _every_ room: quick, intense, and unsubtle.

But Molly jumps, flinches, and practically folds herself into an origami animal. That’s no surprise, actually; Clint’s broad and muscular, out of breath from moving fast, and his face—

Someone really needs to talk to that man about his “resting” face.

“Hey, Tasha,” he greets, completely oblivious to what’s happening in her office. “Phil and I are running down to that Mexican place, you want me to get you some—”

“No, Barton, I don’t.” Her voice is clipped, tighter than she means it to be. In the chair across from her, Molly trembles.

Clint blinks and frowns. If his resting face was bad, this particular expression is as dark and frigid as a Russian winter. And trust Natasha—she’d know. “I didn’t eat your last truffle,” he says for the fiftieth time in the last three days.

She knows he didn’t. She’s back to suspecting Stark. But right now, that’s not important. “I’m in the middle of a meeting.”

“Yeah, okay, but I’m asking—”

“Barton.”

“Jesus, okay, fine!” Clint throws up his hands as he starts to back out of the room. “Don’t come looking for my queso.”

“ _Go_ ,” she demands, and glares at him until he closes the door behind him. 

Molly uncurls slowly, and for a moment, there’s something red-hot and slow-burning in the pit of Natasha’s stomach. In that instant, she hates everything: Greg Harper’s ridiculously low bond amount and the lackadaisical security at the community shelter, the three cases they’ve had to dismiss for lack of witness cooperation and Fury’s unwillingness to institute a no-drop policy; Molly’s ineffective protection order; and, as icing on the cake, Clint Barton.

The feeling’s anger, she realizes as she releases the pen she’s wrapped her fingers around. They ache, and her knuckles are white for the split-second before the blood rushes back in.

“If we drop this case,” she says quietly, “he’ll be back on the street and back harassing you.” Across the desk, Molly’s watching her. Her fingers are still scratching. “I can’t force you to cooperate, I can’t drag you in here kicking and screaming, but I can guarantee you he won’t stay away. And you know that.”

Molly’s eyes fall away, back to her scar and its phantom itch.

“You’ve filed the paperwork to divorce him,” Natasha presses. “He’s guaranteed to do at least sixty days in jail if he’s convicted. Give yourself this chance.”

 _Please_ is the only word that never leaves her lips and never presses into the space between them. It’s the word she never utters to her victims or other terrified witnesses, because it’s unfair.

The choice is Molly’s and Molly’s alone. There’s no room for pleading, not in this case or any other.

Finally, Molly’s head bobs. “Okay,” she agrees.

As highly trained as Natasha is in the fine art of the poker face, she very nearly breaks into a smile. “Okay,” she echoes, and flips open Greg Harper’s case file. 

 

==

 

“I’m starting to think Tony’s onto something with those ‘personally victimized by Natasha Romanoff’ t-shirts,” Clint says when she steps into his office after lunch. Well, after _her_ lunch of a Powerbar and one of Pepper’s disgusting Greek yogurts; Clint’s still crunching on the last of his tortilla chips. “He’d make a killing in this office alone.”

She rolls her eyes. “I was in the middle of a meeting.”

“Tuesday, you interrupted _my_ meeting about the damn truffle.” He watches her with even eyes. They remind her of a wise owl, sometimes, the way they can coolly stare down just about anyone. If he learned to use those eyes on Stark, he might be able to take over the office. “What gives?”

She tucks her hair behind her ear. Clint, like Bruce and Stark and just about everybody else in the office, has a niche. He understands _one_ topic, one area of the law, better than anything else. And while he can skim a half-finished police affidavit and analyze whether there’s enough evidence there to prove a DUI, reckless driving, or racing on a highway, he doesn’t really understand what _she_ does.

None of them do.

He tips the paper bag in her direction, and she comes away from the door to steal a few chips. When she drops into the thinly-padded Goodwill chair across from his desk, she sighs. “This victim’s been tortured by her husband for years,” she says. “And even though we have him on air-tight stalking charges from following her around after she left him, she’s terrified to testify.”

For a few seconds, Clint stares at her, his face nearly unreadable. In a way, this is the most she’s ever shared about one of his cases; they spend time together at a dive bar, at Bruce’s (well, Stark’s), at Phil’s, or in Clint’s frat-boy excuse for an apartment, but they usually don’t discuss work as much as the people they work _with_.

“No offense,” he finally replies, reaching for his coffee mug, “but aren’t most your cases pretty ugly like that? I’ve seen you chase witnesses out the building when they’ve spooked. I’m pretty sure a couple of the defendants you’ve tried think you could kill them with your shoe.”

“I probably could,” she deadpans, and almost smiles when Clint snorts his coffee. She shakes her head, though, and watches the chips in her hand. “Molly was one of the first victims I worked with after I got this job. Greg—her husband—was barely a blip on the radar when I got here. Until he beat her until he broke one of her ribs.”

Clint sucks in a breath through his teeth. “And the asshole isn’t in jail?”

She snorts quietly. “The asshole claimed that they were arguing and that when Molly got worked up and tried to storm off, she tripped down the stairs. After about forty-eight hours, that was Molly’s story, too.” He opens his mouth to say something, but she cuts him off with a look. “We can’t prosecute without the evidence, Clint. You know that.” His lips press into a tight frown. “And Greg, he’s smart. He edges around what’s legal, or he terrifies Molly into silence. The most we’ve ever gotten him on are stupid misdemeanors. Criminal damage, that sort of thing.”

Nodding, Clint leans back in his chair. He swivels idly, one the thousands of distracted tics he’s wholly unaware he has. “Why’s this time different?” Natasha frowns around a mouthful of tortilla chip. “You said it’s been this bad for years. You were in there with her for, what, an hour and a half? Couldn’t be that you spent the whole time trying to convince her. People run from you a lot faster than that.”

Natasha narrowly resists the urge to flip him off, and only because his office door is halfway open. The last thing she wants is to offend Steve’s delicate constitution—or let Stark turn the whole thing into a lewd suggestion about foursomes. She rolls her eyes, instead. “He’s guaranteed at least sixty days on the stalking charges,” she replies. “Molly’s filed for an emergency divorce that’s being heard in two weeks. If everything lines up—”

“They’ll get split, he’ll get locked up, she can get outta town.”

“Right.” Her stupid attempt at a smile dies on her lips, and he abandons it as she tilts her head against the back of the chair. There’s a handful of push-pins embedded in the ceiling tile above Clint’s desk. She turns it into a game of connect-the-dots, stringing the different colors together into shapes and creatures. “He raped her,” she says after a few seconds.

“What?”

“She won’t call it rape. She— I think it’s the last refuge victims get, convincing themselves the assault was somehow less than what you or I’d recognize.” The chair’s comfortable and the room quiet. It’s surprisingly easy to close her eyes. “Three months ago, she came in, terrified and shaking, and filed a protection order against him because he’d pinned her, choked her, and ‘forced her to do it.’ She wouldn’t press charges and didn’t call the police. She just wanted the order.”

There’s a subtle change in Clint’s breathing, a stutter that might be surprise or uncertainty. His chair creaks as he shifts. “And you didn’t call for her?”

“And tell them what? That the uncooperative victim they already don’t trust just told me about a rape she’ll never admit to?” Natasha opens her eyes to glance at him. “It’s not black and white. It’s not crossing the double-yellow lines or disappearing on your kid for a week.” He frowns, but Natasha slides forward and rests her elbows on her thighs. “These are lies and half-truths and nothing we were ever trained for.” 

Clint holds her eyes for a few long seconds. “She’s more than just another case,” he says simply.

“She’s one of my first cases,” she replies evenly. “I’ve worked with her on a half-dozen different cases, she’s—”

“Natasha.”

There’s something soft, almost Banner-gentle in the way he says her name. She drops her eyes to where her fingers are knit together. Like she’s praying, she thinks idly, and all those horrible Sundays at the Russian Orthodox Church rush up to meet her. She clears the memory with a shake of her head. “I think she might die.”

Whatever wisdom Clint planned on imparting catches in his throat. “What?”

“I’ve seen a lot of victims, I’ve tried a lot of these cases, I’ve filled out hundreds of protection orders, and—” She picks at a chip of nail polish on her thumbnail. “You develop an instinct,” she finally says, “and I can’t stop thinking that he might kill her if we can’t lock him up.”

Clint’s quiet for much longer than usual before he says, “Then you better get the bastard.”

And against her better judgment, Natasha smiles. 

 

==

 

Pepper lives on the tenth floor of one of the city’s tallest apartment buildings in an apartment so luxurious that Natasha suspects costs at least double her own rent. It’s something she frequently thinks about on her ride up the mirrored elevator with the brushed-gold ascents, how a trial assistant can afford a place that’s nearly as big as Phil Coulson’s house.

Then, Natasha remembers that Pepper was once the most sought-after paralegal at Cramer and March.

And _then_ , she remembers that part of Pepper’s job is Stark-wrangling, something for which there is no appropriate monetary compensation.

The apartment is warm and smells like garlic when Natasha walks in, and she steps out of her heels to sink her toes into the plush carpet. Music drifts in from the kitchen, low enough that she can almost ignore the fact it’s the classic rock station. She hangs her winter coat on the rack, leaves her bag nearby, and pads into the living room.

She makes it exactly halfway before she’s interrupted.

“You stole my yogurt,” Pepper observes, standing in the doorway to the kitchen wearing well-worn yoga pants and a peachy-pink camisole. Her hair is pulled up into a damp ponytail, and her feet, like her face, are bare. Anyone else would look unkempt, exhausted from a day of boss-related damage control, proof-reading, and Pilates. Pepper looks like a goddess etched in pale pink marble.

Natasha shrugs out of her suit jacket and tosses it over the back of the couch. “I was hungry.”

“It was my afternoon snack.”

“And it died a noble death.”

“You drove me into the arms of a Three Musketeers bar. Tony asked me a dozen times whether I was on my period.” Natasha laughs lightly, but the sound is somehow swallowed by the rush of her heartbeat in her ears. She crosses the room slowly, aware that Pepper’s smile is rapidly slipping away. By the time Natasha stops in front of her, her shoulders are slack and there’s worry finding its way into the delicate lines on her face. She catches Natasha by the arms, long fingers curling against her skin. “What’s wrong?”

She shakes her head. “It’s been a long day,” she says quietly. Pepper raises her eyebrows slightly, and Natasha forces a smile as steps away. She walks into the kitchen, Pepper on her heel, and finds the bottle of wine they opened a few nights ago in the refrigerator. She balances on her toes to bring down glasses, trying her best to ignore the weight of the other woman’s gaze on her back. Every silent second is a shove toward forced conversation, but the words sit heavily on the back of her tongue.

Eventually, Pepper accepts a wine glass and returns to stirring whatever’s on the stove. Natasha leans her hip against the counter before she says, “I met with Molly today.”

Pepper’s spoon stills. “Molly Harper?”

She nods. “When we filed the charges, I thought for sure she’d testify against her husband. I’d never seen her so afraid of him. I thought maybe this time, she’d wise up. She’s not stupid. She knows what he’s doing to her. But . . . “

She shakes her head again, pushing her curls from her face as she sips her wine. She stares at her glass once she’s swallowed, saying nothing more—not that her silence matters. Pepper plays the doting, patient trial assistant well, but Natasha knows how razor-sharp her mind is and how keenly she observes other people. She suspects sometimes that Pepper’d be a better lawyer than most of them combined; whenever she suggests it, though, Pepper just laughs and claims that babysitting Tony is the equivalent of two full-time jobs.

Natasha recognizes it as a lie, but she never pushes. She wonders if she knows how to push someone she cares about in a healthy way. She’s never really tried.

“I don’t know if she’ll come to the trial,” she finally says, and the curiosity on Pepper’s face fades into something like sympathy. A mattress commercial interrupts the music on the radio, complete with a corny jingle, and it jerks her out of the dark place her mind keeps sinking. “Can we please talk about something else? The weather, that art thing you keep sending me e-mails about— We can even talk about Tony.”

Pepper flashes her a surprised grin. “It must be bad if you want to talk about _Tony_.”

The tension deep in Natasha’s belly uncoils at the lift in Pepper’s voice. “Maybe I just want to hear all the creative ways you considered killing him today,” she replies, and she presses close to the other woman for a few seconds before she starts collecting plates and silverware for dinner.

They eat frozen seafood ravioli drowned in a garlicky sauce and talk about a dozen unimportant things: Pepper’s new Pilates instructor, Natasha’s latest battle of wills with Wade Wilson, the heartbreaking book about poverty in India that Bruce picked for the office book club, the art installation Pepper’s desperate to visit when it arrives in town next month. They laugh and joke, emptying the wine bottle between stories, and Natasha eventually starts to forget about the desperation in Molly Harper’s eyes. She at least thinks about it less, focusing instead on the way Pepper’s bare foot brushes against her leg under the table and the way her cheekbones redden when she loses track of the latest Tony Stark debacle and starts to laugh.

Natasha helps her clean up the kitchen and load the dishwasher before she treks back into the living room to collect her things. She watches the city lights outside the picture windows illuminate tiny, optimistic snowflakes. The forecast promised that there’d be no new accumulation, just slush, but Natasha almost wishes for the snow.

She notices Pepper’s reflection in the window before she feels the other woman press against her back, slender arms wrapping around her waist from behind and pulling her close. Natasha closes her eyes for a moment and breathes in Pepper’s scent, warm and fresh in the otherwise cool living room. “If I don’t leave now, the roads’ll get bad,” she says quietly.

“Then stay,” Pepper returns.

Natasha sighs and slips out of her grip. She refuses to glance back over her shoulder for fear of catching disappointment on Pepper’s face—or worse, worry. “I won’t be very good company,” she says, picking up her jacket. “You’d be better off finishing Bruce’s sad book.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Pepper replies casually, and Natasha stills as long fingers run lightly along the curve of her spine. They pause at her waistband and then deftly slide under her top; when Pepper’s fingernails rasp against small of her back, her breath catches. “I could probably turn you into good company.”

Natasha smiles slightly. “You’re pushy tonight.”

“I’m pushy every night,” Pepper reminds her, and she presses her lips to the side of Natasha’s neck before slipping away toward the bedroom.

 

==

 

“At this point, I’ve looked every-fucking-where,” Jasper Sitwell says, his voice apologetic. He’s still wearing his scarf and gloves in the cloying heat of the judicial complex hallway, and his coat hangs open to reveal a thick sweater underneath. His earmuffs rest around his neck like a DJ’s headphones, a shock of bright blue against the black and gray of his coat, sweater, and slacks; in a hundred other scenarios, Natasha might laugh at the absurdity of it all.

But right now, Natasha glances at the elevator bay for what feels like the thirtieth time in as many seconds, waiting for the doors to slide open.

“Shelter said she left to see her mom in Des Moines,” Jasper continues, “and Mom said they haven’t talked for weeks. All the local addresses you gave me are dark, none of the neighbors’ll even answer the door for somebody who looks like a cop, and I’ve left— Shit, maybe nine messages? I lost count.”

The elevator chimes, and Natasha fights against the rush of hope that wells in her chest as a handful of strangers walk out. She rolls her lips into a tight line. “Thanks, Jasper,” she says, and turns away.

Volstagg’s still standing where she left him in the courtroom doorway, the door resting against one of his broad shoulders and his quiet, polite eyes watching her unobtrusively. She likes Volstagg—he always bursts into court with some story about his large, rowdy family—but today, she wishes he’d disappear. Actually, she wishes the whole judicial complex would disappear, dissolving like a fever dream until she wakes up in a cold sweat and discovers that, no, today is not the morning of Greg Harper’s trial.

But impossible wishes are for children.

“Want me to keep looking?” Jasper asks, and she twists to glance back at him. He shrugs, his hands buried in his coat pockets. “I know a lot of places where homeless folks hang out. Somebody’s bound to know where the fuck she ran off to.”

Natasha forces a twitchy, unconvincing half-smile. “The judge won’t delay the trial any further. You know that.”

“Call it a welfare check. Just a guy who likes freezing his balls off for sport making sure whatever hole your witness burrowed in is a warm one.” She feels her smile drop away, and he shrugs again. “You’re not the only one here who’s not a fan of assholes who beat their wives.”

“Apparently not,” she replies dryly. He grins at her, and she resists the sudden, freeing urge to roll her eyes at him. “You’ll do what you want, anyway.”

“Damn straight,” he retorts, and she finally manages a genuine smile as he nods at her and walks off.

She waits until he’s disappeared into the elevator before she walks back to the courtroom. Volstagg steps out of the way and holds the door open for her. “Good news?”

“For one of us,” she says, and she ignores the way his face softens as she strides past. 

Greg Harper swivels in his chair at counsel table as Natasha walks in, and she forces herself to set her jaw into a tight line. Harper’s not a large man—he’s about Bruce’s height but thinner, with sharper shoulders and a hawk-like nose—but he holds himself like king of the room, his chin raised and his eyes flinty behind his glasses. He wears a button-down shirt and a pair of khakis, and to an outside observer, he looks like any other moderately-attractive man off the street.

But then, he flashes Natasha white-toothed smile, and she needs to stare at the judge’s bench to keep from flying across the well of the courtroom and throttling him.

Judge English’s judicial assistant disappears through the secure door, and Natasha spends a few seconds running through the opening statement she’s spent the last few days perfecting. _Greg Harper followed his wife in his blue Toyota sedan_ , she recites to herself as she spreads her notes out on counsel table, _not out of concern or caring, but to intimidate her. And he parked that blue Toyota sedan outside the women’s shelter, the Safeway, and Molly’s church, all to remind her of his power over her. To remind her that, no matter where she is in this city, she belongs to—_

“All rise,” a voice cuts in, and when her knees flex, Natasha realizes that she never sat down. She presses her palms to counsel table for a few seconds before she lowers herself into her chair. Her palms feel sweaty as she watches Judge English settle into place at the bench.

“We’re back on the record in 12-0975C, the State versus Gregory Harper,” the judge recites, a tight line of frustration running through her tone. “At this point, the jury’s been waiting ninety minutes to start a one-day trial. Miss Romanoff, what’s the status of your witness?”

Natasha stands again, ignoring the small tremor that starts in her stomach and radiates outward. “Your honor, our special investigator has searched for Molly Harper, but she cannot be located. At this time, the State requests a continuance so we can—”

“Your honor, with respect to Miss Romanoff, this is becoming a problem,” Volstagg interrupts, spreading his large hands as he rises. “My client was charged months ago, and at every status conference, the State had a new reason why the complaining witness wasn’t ready to appear. Mister Harper cannot delay his life for another six to eight weeks while Miss Romanoff tries to convince his wife to testify. We’d ask you to dismiss the case and let him continue on with his life.”

Natasha sucks in a sharp, unsteady breath. “Until this morning, the State had no indication that she wouldn’t testify,” she returns evenly, but she hears the frustration in her own voice. “Jasper Sitwell is still looking for her, and I’m sure—”

“Miss Romanoff,” Judge English interrupts, and Natasha bites down on the end of her sentence hard enough that she catches the inside of her lip. “I appreciate the State’s position, but Mister Volstagg raises a good point. All of the problems with this case have revolved around Molly Harper’s willingness to testify. And, unlike in a case where there are seven other witnesses who saw the alleged incident, Molly is the only person who can fully testify to what happened between her and her husband.” The judge shakes her head. “The jury has not been sworn, so I will dismiss this case without prejudice. Once you find her, you can refile and, hopefully, move swiftly to trial. Understood?”

“Yes,” Natasha says, but the word catches in the back of her throat.

Volstagg rises. “Yes, your honor, and thank you.”

The judge adjourns the court, and Natasha rises mechanically as she disappears back through the secure door. She listens to Volstagg and Harper exchange a handful of pleasantries as she shoves her papers back into her folder and prepares to leave. When she finally steps away from counsel table, Volstagg offers her a small, sympathetic smile, his eyes considerate.

Volstagg, she reminds herself, is a good man. He can’t help that his client is not.

She strides out of the courtroom without looking back at him.

The district attorney’s office is thrumming with its usual energy as she walks in, cluttered with bustling file clerks and cheery, friendly interns. She presses past each of them, ignoring their greetings and polite nods, and heads straight to Jane’s desk. She drops the Harper file into Jane’s inbox without glancing at her. “Print out a new complaint, get Steve to sign it, but don’t file it.”

Jane blinks at her. “I don’t—”

“They’re simple instructions,” Natasha snaps. When she glances over, Jane’s staring at her, wide-eyed. She tightens her jaw. “New complaint, and check in with Sitwell every fifteen minutes until I tell you to stop.”

Jane nods. “Right,” she says, but Natasha’s already walking away. 

She loops the whole office, past open doors and cluttered cubicles, all the way to the tiny bathroom next to the break room. She closes and locks the door before she leans back against it. Her reflection is pale and strange in the dim light, almost unrecognizable, and she stares at her wild eyes and messy hair. 

Her heart feels like it might burst out of her chest. When she drags her fingers through her curls, she discovers that her hand is shaking. She balls it into a fist and punches the door hard enough that it hurts.

When she closes her eyes, it’s mostly because she can’t stand the sight of herself.

A couple minutes later, after her heart’s slowed and she’s straightened her hair and clothes, she wrenches the door open to find Clint standing in front of it. He’s without a suit coat, but his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows and his hands are in his pockets. He raises his eyebrows at her, and she raises hers back.

They stand in the threshold for too long, staring each other down in a game of emotional chicken.

“Steve says he’s not gonna sign your new complaint without an explanation about what happened,” Clint says finally, shrugging. “Thought I’d hunt you down and let you know.”

She tips her head at him. “And that’s all you wanted?” 

“Mostly, yeah,” he replies, and steps away so she can actually leave the bathroom. They fall into step together in the narrow hallway, their arms almost brushing as they pass the break room, Darcy’s warzone of a cubicle, and Clint’s office.

He lingers in her doorway even after she rounds her desk and unlocks her computer. She settles into her chair before she points out, “I don’t need a babysitter, Barton.”

“I’m not always sure about that,” he retorts, and their eyes meet for one last, brief second before he leaves her alone.

 

==

 

“Am I interrupting?” Bruce Banner asks two weeks later, ducking his head into Natasha’s office.

It feels like the first time all week that she’s lifted her eyes away from the pile of new police reports in her inbox, and she forces a smile as she rubs some of the tension from her forehead. She’s always suspected that her job involves more paperwork than any of the others—she collects innocuous-sounding incident reports and witness statements like a magpie, building a nest of circumstantial evidence from every frantic “false alarm” 911 call—and the few weeks after Valentine’s Day prove how right she is. Romantic evenings fade into drag-out fights and screaming matches, to bruises and broken bones, and she’s left to sort through the debris.

Like the shards of glass in Ellie Pierce’s shoulder that she swears came from a tumbler that shattered in her sink.

She pushes the police report to the furthest corner of her desk. “Here to restore my faith in domestic bliss?” she asks as she glances over at Bruce.

Bruce chuckles. “I’m not sure I know much about that,” he replies. When she raises her eyebrows at him, he shakes his head. “There was an incident involving body chocolate. I’d rather not discuss it while sober.”

“I’m not sure I want to hear it whether you’re sober or not,” she returns, and manages a small smile.

Bruce smiles in reply as he steps into her office and shuts the door behind him. He’s rumpled from head to toe—shirt, slacks, even his hair—but then again, he’s spent the last two days prosecuting a parental rights termination trial with four years of history. She thinks the trial might’ve ended that morning, but she’s not sure.

She eyes the pile of police reports as Bruce sits down across from her desk.

“Clint wanted me to ask whether you’re coming out with us tonight,” he says, and Natasha frowns as she looks over at him. He shrugs. “I suggested he ask you himself, but he seems to think I’m more diplomatic.”

She snorts lightly. “He’s not wrong.”

“I offered to lend him Tony—best way to learn trial-by-fire diplomacy—but he refused.” She smirks and shakes her head, but across from her, Bruce watches her with steady eyes. She glances down at the report in front of her and her still-uncapped highlighter. “We miss you.”

“You mean you miss me picking up the bill every third week.”

“No, I mean we miss _you_.” He leans heavily on the last word, the same force he reserves for hearings, and she rolls her lips together. “You’ve skipped our last couple nights out, never mind the last four or five group lunches,” he continues, concern seeping into his tone. “I know you probably assume we haven’t noticed, but Natasha, if something’s wrong—”

“Nothing’s wrong,” she cuts in, and she lifts her head to meet his eyes. A split-second burst of surprise jumps across his expression. She sighs and pushes her hair away from her face. “I have a lot of cases going in a lot of different directions, and a lot more work to do. If I thought I had the time to be social, I’d come out with you and Clint—or suffer through lunch with the two of you and your respective partners.”

Bruce’s mouth kicks up into a tiny smile. “Tony offered to order Russian food if you joined us for lunch tomorrow.”

“According to Tony, the only two Russian foods are stroganoff and borscht,” she reminds him, and he chuckles. She smiles a little. “It’s just a busy part of the year, Bruce.”

“You’re sure about that?” he asks.

“Positive.”

“And if I mentioned Molly Harper?”

His eyebrows and voice lift in perfect unison, and Natasha resists her urge to groan. She pushes away from the desk as she rolls her eyes, a spike of frustration running through her like a phantom pain. “Did Pepper put you up to this?” she asks, glancing over at him. Bruce purses his lips. “Let me guess, she said that she thought my ‘bad mood’ lately is because of what happened with Molly.”

He shakes his head. “She didn’t,” he replies quietly, “but you just did.”

She opens her mouth, ready to lodge another complaint until she realizes that Bruce is staring at her, wordlessly curious and, worse, _worried_. She sets her jaw and twists away from him, glancing out the window at the cloudy gray sky. Even though it’s shortest month of the year, February _feels_ long and slow, and the weather never helps. She stares at the drifting snow flurries before she says, “I thought she’d listen this time.”

“Molly?” Bruce asks.

She nods. “Before this most recent attack, the one where she filed the protection order, I never expected her to testify. But the fear in her eyes, the way she begged me to help her file the order, I thought—” She sighs and shakes her head before she looks back at Bruce. “She skipped out on the trial, and then on the hearing for her emergency divorce. Sitwell never found her, she won’t return my phone calls, no one can pin her down. She’s like a ghost, and when that happens—”

The words stick in the back of her throat, and she stares down at the papers spread across her desktop. In her peripheral vision, she catches Bruce nodding. “You think this time’s different than before?”

“You can tell when something’s off in a marriage. In any relationship. You can almost smell it, the way it’s rancid from the inside out.” She swallows before she meets Bruce’s eyes. “He’s escalating,” she says, admitting the thought aloud for the first time since Molly filed her protection order. “He choked her, he raped her, he stalked her— Bruce, you’ve been to the same conferences and CLEs I have. You know what that means for Molly. For her chances of getting away—and _surviving_.”

He nods again. “Not everyone is a statistic, you know.”

She quirks an eyebrow. “Do you really believe that?”

Bruce forces a tight, humorless smile. “No,” he replies, “but when it’s my case, I usually like hearing it.”

He leaves a few minutes later, once he’s coaxed her into a tentative promise to join him and Clint for drinks that night—“I promise we won’t make you pay,” he teases, and she manages to grin a little as she rolls her eyes. With the door shut behind him, her office is as small and silent as a crypt, and she thinks she hears her own heartbeat in her ears. She swivels away from her desk and stands, crossing to her window to stare down at the gray parking lot and its mounds of dirty, slowly-melting snow. 

“Where are you, Molly?” she murmurs. 

It’s a question answered only by silence.

 

==

 

“I know what time it is, and I’m sorry about that,” Detective Cassidy says as he lifts the crime scene tape for her, “but I’d gotten word you knew something about these folks, and— Well. You can see for yourself.”

Snowflakes cling to Natasha’s hair and coat as she falls into step beside the detective, crunching up the unshoveled front walk to the dingy, white-washed house on the edge of town. The neighborhood’s a remnant from the housing boom before the Great Depression, wooden houses with large front porches and detailed trim that are steadily falling into disrepair. Natasha’d driven slowly down the street on her way to the scene, staring at sagging roofs and boarded-up windows in the dim glow of her headlights.

The front steps on this particular house consist of plywood balanced on cinderblocks. Cassidy offers his arm, and even with his help, Natasha almost slips on the slush caused by the police and crime scene technicians.

“We’ll need to do something about those before we get into the thick of it,” he comments, and Natasha smiles politely as she steps into the house.

It’s as frigid inside as out, the wind whistling through duct-taped cracks in the picture window, and for a moment, she stands stock still on the _welcome_ mat and shivers under her coat. She’d imagined and reimagined the house as she’d pulled on jeans and climbed into her car, building it into a horror-movie scene filled with blood and gore. Instead, she finds herself staring at an old tube television in front of an armchair, a lamp with a crooked shade, nicotine-yellowed wallpaper, and a mantle covered in cheap tchotchkes from long-ago vacations. The whole place is aggressively unremarkable, and her stomach twists because of it.

“Miss Romanoff?” Cassidy asks, and she blinks away from the living room to find him standing a few feet ahead of her, halfway down the hall. “This way.”

She nods before following.

There are a few uniformed officers and another detective standing in the kitchen as Natasha and Cassidy enter, and their hushed conversations immediately lapse into respectful silence. Like the rest of the house, this room’s dated and faded, full of ancient appliances and chipped, yellowed paint. But unlike in the other rooms, the aged comfort her is marred by chaos. Broken glass litters the floor, shards that surround cracked dishes and abandoned, overturned pans; on the stove, something smolders lightly, thin fingers of smoke still drifting into the air. Silverware is strewn across the counter, resting in puddles from an open container of chicken broth. A sharp kitchen knife is embedded in a wooden cutting board.

And on the floor, surrounded by shattered and forgotten dishware, is Molly Harper.

For the first few seconds, Natasha stares at her, unblinking, convinced that this—like the late-night phone call and the flashing emergency lights in front of the Harper’s home—is a clever lie. A ruse or a joke, she thinks, an attempt to screw with her head and leave her off balance. Molly’s dressed in a long-sleeved t-shirt and a pair of jeans, her eyes fixed on the ceiling fan and her arms and legs splayed out as though she’d just slipped on a puddle. The longer Natasha studies her, the more she’s able to imagine the steady rise and fall of Molly’s chest, and that the angry red marks around her throat—finger marks, Natasha realizes as her whole body lurches—aren’t actually there.

She hears her own breath coming in shallow pants. She wonders whether anyone else notices.

“Guthrie and his partner nabbed the husband out at a pub,” Cassidy says, and even though he stands at Natasha’s side, his voice sounds as distant as an echo. “Said he told his wife the marriage was over and then headed out for a pint. They asked him to come back here, he said no. Something about never wanting to see her useless face again.” He pauses. “Her mom’s coming down from Iowa. Won’t make it ‘til morning.”

She nods dumbly. Molly, still and silent on the kitchen floor, swims in her vision. She swallows hard and closes her eyes. “Strangled?” she asks. 

“Looks like. We see a lot of that in these domestics, somebody snaps and—” He pauses, and a strong hand suddenly grips Natasha’s arm. Her eyes fly open as she jerks away, almost stumbling on the uneven linoleum; Cassidy blinks at her, his face as worried as it is surprised. “Sorry,” he says quickly, “you just went pale, and—”

“I’m fine,” she snaps, but she hears the way each word trembles. “Call the on-call prosecutor, make sure they’re aware of what’s happening, I need to—” 

She gestures toward the hallway and walks off before the detective even has the chance to nod at her, her swift footfalls turning to a jog before she hits the front porch. A blast of cold air fills her lungs, and she almost trips off the teetering cinderblock steps as she rushes away from the house. She barely plants her hands on the hood of her car before she doubles over, her head bowed as she dry-heaves into the unbroken snow at her feet. Her whole body shakes, not from the cold but from her roiling stomach and pounding heart, and she rests her forehead against the cool metal as she slowly remembers how to breathe.

Behind her eyelids, Molly Harper scratches a cigarette-burn scar and hides her face behind her stringy hair. Natasha punches the hood of her car hard enough that her hand burns and sucks in deep breaths until her chest and throat ache from cold.

She drives half-blindly through the snow, lost like an explorer in a strange new land until she’s nodding politely to a doorman who never remembers her name and surging into a mirrored, brushed-gold elevator. By the time she’s on the tenth floor, she moves almost robotically, her knees jelly-weak but still pushing her forward.

She pounds on the second-last door in the hallway until she swears her cold-chapped knuckles are bruised and split.

Pepper’s hair is a mess of strawberry blonde waves around her shoulders when she finally answers, her sleep-rimmed eyes wide and frightened. “Natasha?” she asks. For the first time, Natasha wonders how long she stood frozen outside the Harper house, watching emergency lights stain the snow.

She shivers, her whole body shaking with cold, before she says, “Molly Harper was murdered tonight.”

Pepper stands silently for the first few seconds, staring at her with big eyes and parted lips. The snow that once clung to Natasha’s hair and coat in fluffy clumps melts and drips onto the expensive carpeting. A few drops roll down her face; when she raises a hand to wipe them away, she realizes that she’s crying.

“Oh, Natasha,” Pepper finally breathes, and Natasha only stops shaking when Pepper pulls her into her arms.

 

==

 

“You know, Mister Volstagg is right: we’ve asked you to consider a lot of testimony over the last few days,” Maria Hill says, and she sets her pen down on the podium before stepping away from it. “We’ve talked about a marriage in crisis, about a woman who wanted help leaving her husband and the husband who regularly abused her. Greg Harper wants you to believe that all this information—all of the testimony from detectives, friends, and neighbors—are stories. That they’re tall tales the State concocted to unjustly blame him for his wife’s death.” She glances down at her hands, ones that up until that moment were gesturing emphatically along with her words, and drops them slowly to her side. “But there’s one thing I’d ask each and every one of you to think about as you go back into the jury deliberation room, and I want you to carry it with you as you decide whether Greg Harper is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”

She crosses the well of the courtroom slowly, her footfalls almost silent on the carpet. The whole room watches her, rapt and attentive, and at counsel table, Natasha feels her body tense. She wrote Maria’s closing argument, practicing and polishing it until it sounded smoothly unrehearsed, but it’s always different when they’re actually in the courtroom, presenting rebuttal argument.

At the defense table, Greg Harper shifts his weight, the sweat stains under his arms spreading thanks to the judicial complex’s unreliable air conditioner and the unforgiving August heat.

Maria walks in front of each and every one of the jurors, meeting their eyes, catching and holding their attention. When she stops at the head of the jury box, she allows them a clear view of the fidgety, sweat-damp defendant. “I want you to remember that Molly Harper was murdered on her kitchen floor with hands around her neck, struggling to breathe and staring into the eyes of her killer, and that the last thing she saw—the last thing she knew before she died—was that face.” 

Silence sweeps over the courtroom. One juror touches her own throat. 

“Thank you,” Maria says, and heads back to counsel table.

The judge finishes instructing the jury immediately after the close of their argument, his droning voice filling the courtroom, but all Natasha hears are the last three days of evidence, testimony that sweeps in and out of her brain like the tide. She’s spent the last six months working closely with Maria, their heads bent together in Maria’s office as they hammered out the details of the case; they’ve shared strategy, draft questions and arguments, and even their frustrations over hasty lunches and too-late dinners. Natasha’s watched Maria’s armor fracture and crack at times, especially as Harper’s dear “friends” crawled out of the woodwork to support him as a loving, caring, and definitely not abusive husband.

“Men like this should be castrated,” Maria’d muttered at one point during an afternoon recess from the trial.

Natasha’d smiled. “I can’t argue with that.”

Once the jury retreats into the deliberation room and the judge confirms the phone numbers of all three attorneys, Natasha steps out into the hall, filling her lungs for what feels like the first time all day. She shakes out her hands—sore from a morning of holding them in fists—as Maria steps up to stand next to her. “I think the jury liked the rebuttal,” she remarks as she tucks the file under her arm.

Natasha raises an eyebrow at her. “But?”

“But nothing.” They stare at each other for a moment before Maria chuckles and shakes her head. “Okay, maybe one thing, but it’s not about the closing. It’s about who delivered it.” 

Natasha frowns. “Meaning?”

“Meaning that it should’ve been you who handled this trial.” She rolls her eyes at the way Maria’s expression hardens into something quiet and concerned. “Natasha, you knew this case cold before I even started reading the police reports. You’d worked with the victim, you knew their history, and you wrote just about every word that came out of my mouth.” When Natasha snorts a little at that, Maria purses her lips. “You should’ve sat first chair. I don’t know why you didn’t.”

Natasha allows the other woman to hold her eyes for a few seconds longer before she shrugs and glances away. “I’ve never handled a murder trial before,” she replies easily, her hands sliding into the pockets of her jacket. “Better to leave it to the experts than let him slip through the cracks.”

“And that’s really it?” Maria presses.

“Absolutely,” Natasha answers, and she flashes her a brief smile before she walks away.

She climbs the back stairwell up to the sixth floor and then one flight further, up to the empty roof. The summer sun beats down as she steps out onto the tar paper, baking her in her black blazer; she props the door open with a cinderblock and then hangs her jacket over the push bar. She wanders all the way to the waist-high concrete barrier around the roof and leans her arms against it to stare out into the bright summer afternoon.

It’s easy, standing on the roof, to remember the rare moments with Molly Harper, moments when a surprised smile bloomed across her face or she startled herself and Natasha by laughing. And it’s easy, too, to remember the warm summer days of Natasha’s own childhood, of playing at the park and trips to the zoo, days when her life seemed normal—and beautiful.

She tries to remember that version of Molly and that version of herself, and not the versions marred by lifeless eyes and broken dishes.

It’s a half-hour later before anyone seeks her out, the roof door squeaking quietly before it settles back against the cinderblock. Natasha listens to the steady crunch of high heels on tar paper until she catches the first whiff of jasmine on the summer breeze; then, she smiles.

Pepper’s shoulder brushes hers as she leans against the barrier, too, the sun highlighting the dramatic contrast of her pale skin and her lively freckles. Her ponytail bobs as she studies Natasha’s face.

“Do you want to talk?” she asks gently.

Natasha shakes her head. “No.”

“Okay,” Pepper replies, and presses their shoulders together.

**Author's Note:**

> The criminal case in this story, prosecuted by Natasha, is about a man who has abused his wife many times over the years. In the course of the story, we discover that he has burned her with cigarettes, choked her, raped her, and stalked her; during the story, she is found strangled in her own home. Trigger warnings for sexual assault, strangulation, stalking, and domestic violence.
> 
> On a less harrowing note, I am taking drabble prompts over at tumblr to celebrate 600 followers. [Stop by if you're interested in participating.](http://the-wordbutler.tumblr.com/post/82236300121/the-600-follower-drabble-party)
> 
> A list of upcoming MPU stories can be found [here](http://the-wordbutler.tumblr.com/post/82335249042/mpu-future-fics-and-other-endeavors).


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